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Neurological and cognitive problems news

New findings, published today by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, open the door to the development of new therapies to block or decrease cognitive decline due to HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders, estimated to affect 10 to 50 percent of aging HIV sufferers to some degree.

New findings, published today by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, open the door to the development of new therapies to block or decrease cognitive decline due to HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders, estimated to affect 10 to 50 percent of aging HIV sufferers to some degree.

As many as 50% of those on combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) suffer from mild to moderate cognitive dysfunction. Antiretroviral medications themselves may be partly to blame for such neurocognitive problems, suggests a recent review of previous studies. But the authors of this review do not recommend that antiretroviral treatment be stopped.

A new study has found that low- and high-frequency hearing is poorer in adults with the human immunodeficiency virus, compared with adults who do not have the disease. Although unexpected, similar hearing loss has previously been observed to be more likely in adults with diabetes mellitus. "It is possible that both HIV infection and diabetes, being systemic diseases, could affect the neural function of the cochlea," the authors suggest.

“Hepatitis C infection has serious long-term side effects, such as damage to the liver, but our research indicates that it does not affect the brain,” said lead author David Clifford, MD, of Washington University.

The type of immune cell called macrophages, which have been proposed as a 'sanctuary site' of HIV in the brain and other organs, and as a possible cause of HIV-related brain impairment, don't live long enough to serve as reservoirs of HIV, a study in PLoS Pathogens finds.

HIV RNA remained detectable at low levels in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of almost 20% of patients who had HIV RNA levels below 40 copies/mL for up to 10 years of antiretroviral therapy (ART). The investigators believe their finding indicates that the central nervous system (CNS) can be an HIV reservoir during suppressive ART.

People with HIV and AIDS are living longer than was ever expected before the development of highly active antiretroviral therapies in the 1990s. Palm Springs, a Coachella Valley desert city 100 miles east of Los Angeles, has become a hub for older infected residents well into their 60s and 70s. Yet even as many live longer, there is a broad segment of HIV patients who are aging physically and cognitively faster than the rest of the population.

Although HIV dos not infect nerve cells, researchers strongly suspect that, once activated in the brain and the spinal cord, immune cells keep up a chronic inflammation level which then results in the destruction of nerve cells.

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